Beside Still Waters....

Cartoon from the Christian Science MyBible Lesson 8/1/2010

Divine Love leads us beside the "still waters". Sheep don't like to drink in "troubled waters" and shepherds know to lead them to still waters. Be still and listen to Divine Love's guidance....

Teach Me to Love

What is the solution to ALL of the world's problems? I think I have it!!

If only we could follow this wonderful poem's promise, the world would truly reflect God's plan for all mankind.

Today's challenge is clear. Practice, Practice, Practice.....

My most loved poem.....

TEACH ME TO LOVE

There was a time when in my daily prayer

I asked for all the things I deemed most fair,

And necessary to my life – success,

Riches, of course, and ease, and happiness;

A host of friends, a home without alloy;

A primrose path of luxury and joy,

Social distinction, and enough of fame

To leave behind a well-remembered name.

Ambition ruled my life. I longed to do

Great things, that all my little world might view

And whisper, “Wonderful!”

Ah, patient God,

How blind we are, until Thy shepherd’s rod

Of tender chastening gently leads us on

To better things! …

Today I have but one

Petition, Lord – Teach me to love.

Indeed It is my greatest and my only need –

Teach me to love,

not those who first love me,

But all the world, with that rare purity

Of broad outreaching thought which

Bears no trace

Of earthly taint, but holds in its embrace

Humanity, and only seems to see

The good in all, reflected Lord from Thee.

And teach me, Father, how to love the most

Those who most stand in need of love-

That host of people who are sick and poor and bad,

Whose tired faces show their lives are sad,

Who toil along the road with footsteps slow,

And hearts more heavy than the world can know-

People whom others pass discreetly by,

Or fail to hear the pleading of that cry

For help, amid the tumult of the crowd;

Whose very anguish makes them cold and proud,

Resentful, bitter in their grief-

I want to bring them comfort and relief,

To put my hand in theirs, and at their side

Walk softly on, a faithful, fearless guide.

O Saviour, thou the Christ, Truth, ever near,

Help me to feel these sad ones doubly dear

Because they need so much! Help me to seek

And find that which they thought was lost; to speak

Such words of cheer that as we pass along

The wilderness shall blossom into song.

Ah, Love divine, how empty was that prayer

Of other days! That which was once so fair-

Those flimsy baubles that the world calls joys

Are nothing to me now but broken toys.

Outlived, outgrown. I thank Thee that I know

Those much desired dreams of long ago,

Like butterflies, have had their summer’s day

Of brief enchantment and have gone. I

Pray for better things

Thou knowest, God above,

My one desire now - Teach me to love.

(Reprinted from the Christian Science Journal of October 1908)

This is an old but timeless poem... a worthy guide that I will earnestly try to practice.......

We can pray for the coming of the time when our worth is based on how well we follow the guidance in this lovely poem.

The Lens of Thought

When I was a young boy living in a relatively small town many years ago, our school provided a movie during lunch period for students who took their lunch to school. We could go to the auditorium, pay a whopping 2 cents and watch the "featured" movie. The films were old and undoubtedly dirty and played on a noisy projector. Often during the middle of the film, almost always at the most exciting part, if an old Tom Brown's School Days or an Edgar Bergen and his puppet Charlie McCarthy movie ever got really exciting, some dirt smudges or hair and dust balls would show up on the screen and flit around making it difficult to see the action!!!.

Invariably the projector would be shut off and the projector operator would clean off the lens, and the movie would start again.

It fascinated me that even though the debris appeared on the screen, the solution wasn't to cut parts of the screen out and replace them... the solution was to merely clean the lens and a perfect picture reappeared.

I often think of that today when some problem seems to be affecting my life. How easy it would seem to be if only I could cut out the offending part, like cutting the blotchy part out of the movie screen, and continue on with my life. Whether the problem is a physical ailment, a problem in business, or a relationship, or financial or any a long string of problems which can present themselves to our thought, it would be an easy way out.

But I am learning, however slowly, that to properly and completely correct the problems and to see myself and others as perfect reflections of and made in the image and likeness of, God, Spirit, the creator of all Life,  it is necessary, as demonstrated by the old projector operator, to clean the lens of thought so that a more pure and focused life can be experienced.

That means cleansing the lens by washing away material based thinking. When I give power or credence to anything opposed to spirituality, to a sense of life outside of God's infinite qualities of Love, Spirit, Mind and Truth, the lens starts fogging up again. Jesus saw clearly that man is wholly spiritual and was able to heal the sick and sinning. He was not burdened with worries about finances, food, clothing, social status, a BMW, war, terror or any of the situations that we seem to be obsessed with.  Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy contains this statement, "Jesus beheld, in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick."  S&H 476

Jesus said "be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect...." Matthew 5:48.  As we fill our hearts and mind with Love, there is no place for in-harmony, illness, discord of any kind.  

It's okay to be PERFECT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Truth and Integrity

"Be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. "(I Timothy 4:12)

How easy it is to take on the name of Christian but not follow with a Christlike life.

Am I changing colors to "fit in" like the chameleon? Do I put on a show for the benefit of others but fail to live the life of Love and Soul, imaging forth the Godliness that is my heritage? Am I ashamed to be different and to set the pace for others... and myself? Are my statements of faith and understanding, and my stated deeply held convictions different than what I actually demonstrate in daily life?

A good friend once described his definition of integrity as "The coincidence between what we SEEM to be on the outside, and what we REALLY ARE on the inside.

Today I will strive earnestly to live the life that I proclaim to live, reflect the values that I hold dearly and be a genuine follower of the example that Christ Jesus set.